


Blame It On The Stardust

by aprilbird



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: ...or does he, Assumptions, Basically there is Distress and Disarray, Controlled Chaos, Eavesdropping, Fake Science, Fluff and Crack, Miscommunication, Mission Fic, Misunderstandings, Multi, POV Multiple, Post-Crisis On Earth-X Crossover Event (CW DC TV Universe), Ray Palmer does NOT have a choking kink, Robots, Stripper!Oliver makes an appearance, Team Dynamics, doppelgangers, the 80s, this was so much fun to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilbird/pseuds/aprilbird
Summary: The thing with being Captain of a ship full of misfits and oddballs was that crazy wasn’t always something you faced together. Sometimes, it grew from within, escalating from a simple misunderstanding to a full-on domino effect of clashing personalities, sheer pandemonium, and miscommunication between team members that would bring Oliver Queen to tears.Ray Palmer (the Atom) and Ray Terrill (the Ray) have the same first name. That shouldn't have been a problem, given that they never met and live in different dimensions, right? Wrong. One misunderstanding turns into many, and as the truth twists and teams are unconsciously formed, the Legends must pull themselves out of a spiral of hilarious incoherence in time to save the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Legends have always been a ridiculous bunch, but this may be their grandest fiasco yet. Set somewhere in the middle of season 3, after the Crisis on Earth-X crossover.
> 
> I said I would post this "in a month" in like... June. I'm so sorry. The ending has been taking forever and I've been busy, so I decided to break my rule and post this in chapters even though it's not quite done. I promise I won't abandon it, though! I've got about 12k done so I'll post that as I decide where the chapter breaks will be. Thanks for bearing with me.
> 
> Title from Hymn by Kesha  
> I think that the line, and that song, really encapsulates the vibe of the show, and of this fic. It's kind of a clusterfuck. I hope you like it.

**-Intro: Sara-**

Sara Lance was many things: an assassin, a vigilante, a Captain, a Legend. What Sara Lance wasn’t, however, was calm in the face of people trying her patience. Unfortunately, she led a team that seemed determined to do just that.

Sara Lance had been through a lot. She’d done horrible things and had horrible things done to her, had loved and lost and come back from the dead. She had been through some pretty absurd, unbelievable, and just plain bizarre situations throughout her time as an assassin, and even more so as a Legend. At this point, she prided herself on her ability to meet each new round of crazy with a raised eyebrow, a smirk, or a spinning heel kick. Sara was unflappable; nothing was too ridiculous for her to handle. But the thing with being Captain of a ship full of misfits and oddballs was that crazy wasn’t always something you faced together. Sometimes, it grew from within, escalating from a simple misunderstanding to a full-on domino effect of clashing personalities, sheer pandemonium, and miscommunication between team members that would bring Oliver Queen to tears. Nothing exemplified this pattern of coherent chaos more than the mission that would eventually be referred to, lovingly and jokingly and exasperatedly, as the Ray Incident.

  


**-Ray-**

_1988_

_San Francisco, CA, USA_

_What Ray Palmer was could fill a novel: a genius, a billionaire, an ordained minister, an inventor, an Eagle Scout, a superhero, a Legend, etc. What Ray Palmer wasn’t, however, was particularly observant. That’s basically where the whole mess started._

 

“Gosh, I just love the missions where we get to dress up, you know?” Ray beamed as they walked down the street, smoothing the large collar of his aquamarine shirt. “I feel like lately it’s been all modern dress or full fight gear, where’s the fun in that? I’d have preferred the Renaissance, personally, but the 80’s are good too! I might actually keep these jeans, though, they’re really comfy.”

“Oh, I’d definitely encourage that, for Sara’s pained glances alone,” drawled Leo Snart, giving him a discerning once-over. Leo was wearing a large leather jacket, aviators, and jeans that were similarly unfortunate in cut and style, yet somehow he maintained his usual aura of cool dignity. “I’m not even going to _start_ on the monstrosity that is your hair, because something tells me you spent a lot of time on it.”

“I did, actually!” Ray brought his hand up as if to run his fingers through said monstrosity, but settled for gingerly patting its coiffed, gelled surface instead. “Gideon helped, she pulled up this tutorial that was r-”

“ _Shh_!” Leo hissed, elbowing Ray as he pulled one hand up in the closed-fist ‘stop’ signal that was, apparently, the same in any dimension. “The readings are getting stronger; I think they're coming from that building up the hill.”

“The one with all the people around it?” asked Ray, peering around Leo to see. He squinted, holding up a hand to block the California sunshine. “It looks like a club!”

“ ‘Malachite’...” Leo read, considering the sign above the crowd. The neon lights were turned off, but it looked flashy nonetheless. “Could be. Isn’t that a rock?”

Ray shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know, I thought it just meant green? That’s a lame thing to call a club, either way.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I? Not exactly a lot of nightclubs on Earth-X.” Leo’s tone was sarcastic, but his hands were tense around the signal detector as he checked the readings again.

“Right, sorry!” exclaimed Ray, wide-eyed. “I didn’t, I mean, you-”

Leo rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, Haircut. Mind if I call you Haircut? It’s kind of hard to look away from…” he pointed at Ray’s head. “That. Or maybe I’ve just been hanging out with Mick too much. Probably a good thing that we got off the ship to stretch our legs, yeah?” He motioned towards an alley that would lead them to the other side of the club and around the crowd.

Ray followed, pulling his hands out of his pockets to gesture as he talked. “Yeah, totally! And there’s definitely worse places to have a mission than sunny San Fran! Like, once, I was stuck in the 1950’s for two whole years with this woman, Kendra, who used to be on our team, and we were dating and we sort of got engaged? But then she left me for her immortal bird-man soulmate, or something. And another time, before that, I got beat up in a Russian gulag. It sucked, but Mick helped me! But then he betrayed us a while after. It’s all fine now, though.”

Leo squinted back at him, shaking his head in disbelief. He hesitated, then reached out to grasp Ray's shoulder, pulling them to a stop in the shade of the alley.

“Look, Haircut, I... these things are hard enough without trust issues, right? Don’t let it get you down. Yeah?”

“Thanks, but I’m mostly over it,” said Ray, thinking about Kendra. It was strange how little he’d thought of her, these past few years. He was content with the strange little family they had become on the Waverider; he barely noticed his lack of a love life.

“Still, know that you’ve got a good team around you,” said Leo, thinking about the Mick he had known on his Earth. It was a shame that the Legends had such betrayals in their pasts, but he was glad they had worked it out. “I know I haven’t been here all that long, but you’ve really made me feel welcome. I know you’ve got the whole team thing going on, but if you’re ever looking for a partner…” He offered his hand.

Ray took it, half-smile frozen on his face as he tried to figure out what Leo had just said. He didn’t mean like… _partner_ , partner, did he? “I.. I mean, what?”

“I just mean, we work well together, you and I. No pressure.” Leo gave Ray a small smile. He loved working with the Legends, but he had spent most of his life fighting with only one person at his back- Mickey, General Schott, his Ray, and others- and if he had to pick a member of his new team to fight alongside, it would be Dr. Palmer. His innocent humor was refreshing, and he really cared about his team and the work they did. With that thought, Leo gestured back towards the club. “Now let's get a closer look at those readings.”

Ray stared at Leo’s retreating back, hand still stuck out, trying to process what had just happened. He had said something about Kendra… Leo had offered to be... partners? What the _hell_?

 

**-Leo-**

_The Waverider_

_Captain’s office_

 

What Leo Snart was would impress anyone: a freedom fighter, a vigilante, a soldier against tyranny. Leo Snart was not, however, accustomed to misunderstanding others, or being misunderstood himself. It just didn’t happen, not on Earth-X where communication was literally the key to survival. The Waverider, though, was a whole other story.

“So you didn’t find the anachronism?”

“Nope. We think it’s a breach.”

“A _breach_ ?” Sara Lance stared at him, eyebrows raised not in disbelief but in some unquantifiable emotion that Leo would classify as ‘ _s_ _ure, at this point, why the hell not?_ ’. It was an emotion he saw frequently on the Captain’s face.

She shook her head, ponytail swinging. “Like one of Cisco’s? You’re our resident expert on dimensions and breaches, talk me through it.”

“Sort of like Cisco’s,” he replied. “He didn’t create this one; the energy signature is different. One thing’s for sure- it wasn’t made from this side. Something punched _into_ this dimension. I’d hazard a guess and say it’s from Earth 20-something, maybe, looking at the readings. It’s unclear if anything has actually come through, or if it’s what causes our anachronism. It may be entirely unrelated.” He let dry sarcasm creep into his voice on the last sentence- with the Legends, nothing was ‘entirely unrelated’.

Sara closed her eyes, resting her forehead on one hand as she gestured vaguely with the other. “So _someone_ \- we don’t know who- _somehow_ made a portal to our dimension from we-don’t-know-where, and they _might_ do _something_ that could _somehow_ cause a level-8 anachronism?”

“Essentially, yes,” Leo said, pulling up blueprints on the opposite wall with a wave of his hand. “Dr. Palmer and I couldn’t get to the actual breach; it appears to be below a nightclub of some kind. There was quite the crowd outside- apparently it opens in a few hours but people queue earlier. My best guess is that we’ll find the breach in a sub-level of some kind.”

“What did you say the club was called again?” Sara asked, with a faintly amused look.

“Malachite. It means green. Apparently.”

The Captain snickered to herself, tipping her chair to the side as she stretched, reaching for the tray of whiskey and glasses on the shelf nearby. “Investigating the sub-level of a club named after the color green, huh? I need a drink, but there’s no way I’m missing out on this one.” She finished pouring her glass and lifted the bottle in his direction. “Want some? Mission-planning and drinking, that’s the best way.” He inclined his head slightly, and she poured with an expert hand. “God, you know what the craziest thing is? A month ago I would've been all ‘ooh boy, a nightclub mission, time to find some cute-ass ho clothes and get laid!’, y’know? Not like, _you know_ , y’know, just… I don’t know.” She passed him the glass.

“While there’s nothing wrong with that, I sense a ‘but’ coming,” said Leo, taking a sip.

“ _But_ , now there’s Ava,” Sara continued, her ears turning pink. “And I don’t know what we are, exactly, but let’s just say I’ve never been less interested in casual hookups.”

Leo smiled distantly. “You guys remind me of myself and Ray- my Ray- years ago, when we first got together. We used to snark at each other and argue about missions just like you and Ava, and we still do occasionally, but… it’s different.”

“You miss him?” Sara asked softly.

“Every day,” Leo shrugged, smiling. “But I figured I owed you guys my help after you helped us, and after you lost Stein.”

“Still, you guys have fought side by side for years! Being away from him must be tough- hell, I miss Ava, and it’s only been a week since I saw her, _and_ we’re not even actually a couple yet.”

“Yet?” Leo repeated, taking another sip of whiskey and raising his eyebrows.

“ _Yet_. I don’t know,” she sighed, setting down her glass. She leaned forward to fold her arms on the table and her chair tipped to its front legs. Suddenly, she sat straight up, slamming her chair back down with a clatter. “I’ve got it! Leo, I’ve had some bad plans in the past, but we can’t go wrong with this one.”

He squinted at her.

“I’m listening.”

 

**-Nate-**

 

_Temporal Zone_

_The Waverider_

_The Galley_

 

_Nate Heywood was a historian, an ex-hemophiliac, and a superhero. He was also kind of an idiot. He was not, however, a bad friend. Or so he told himself whenever people came to him for advice that he was definitely not qualified to give. But he was a good friend, and he did his best._

 

“Look, bro, have you thought that maybe, perhaps, _possibly_... you’re making this into a bigger deal than it is?”

“You weren’t there, Nate! It _really_ kinda felt like he was hitting on me, but that’s crazy, right?” Ray was pacing around the galley, one hand waving around, one clutched in the _atrocity_ that was his hair. Nate sat back with his feet up on the table and wondered, distantly, if it had been that bad before Ray started messing it up. It was hard to imagine that mess looking worse, that was for sure. He sighed.

“Dude, take me through it again. He said you two were good together?”

“I think so, I don’t remember exactly! Oh, gosh, what if he like, _likes_ me? I don’t want to hurt his feelings!”

“Because you’re straight?”

“Right! At least, I’m pretty sure I am? I took an online quiz and it said I am, but that was a while ago.”

Nate stared. “Uh, bro, I’m pretty sure that googling an ‘am I gay’ quiz is a pretty good sign-”

“ _I_ didn’t look it up, Zari did! She was trying to figure some stuff out and she made me take it too. Anyways, it said I was straight. So I probably am. Right?”

“Sure? I really think you’d know best, dude.”

“Well, _you’re_ straight, right?”

Nate killed the last of his root beer and shrugged. “I’d say I’m, like, a 3 on the Kinsey Scale, to be honest.”

Ray blinked.

Nate sighed and swung his legs down from the table so he could sit up straight. “Alright, buddy. The issue here isn’t if you’re straight, it’s if you like Leo. Do you?”

“No! I mean, not like that. _Definitely_ not.”

“Well, there you go! Problem solved.”

Ray made a pained face and waved a hand incoherently. “But, I don’t- what if _he_ likes _me_? Should I talk to him about it? Let him down easy? Pretend I don’t know?”

“Well, we’re only working off of one conversation, which we might be totally misinterpreting! The best thing to do at this point is talk to Leo- not about this, just about something- and see how he acts. I’m sure it’s nothing, bro.”

“Ok. Yes. Good point,” Ray admitted, determinedly attempting to fix his hair. “I’ll ask him if he needs me to improve the dimensional-energy scanner. We think we found a breach, did I tell you?”

“You didn't actually, you just walked in here and started freaking out about Leo.”

“Well, that’s a whole thing, so I do actually need to run some tests, and see if I can pinpoint which Earth it came from, and whether anything or anyone came through, and if it could be related to our anachronism, and-”

“Yeah, yeah, just make sure you talk to him, see if he’s weird around you!” Nate called at Ray’s retreating back. Hopefully he’d see that he had made a big deal out of nothing, and everything would be fine.

 

**-Ray-**

 

“Hey, Gideon, where’s Leo?” Ray asked, the galley doors whirring shut behind him.

“Mr. Snart is currently in the Captain’s office, Dr. Palmer,” Gideon’s smooth voice echoed from above. “He is informing the Captain of the findings of your reconnaissance mission.”

“Thanks!”

As he walked, Ray turned it over in his head. Honestly, he was probably just misinterpreting what Leo had said. ‘Partners’ could easily mean fighting partners, or teammates, after all. Or partners in crime, if one was thinking about the original Leonard Snart. By the time he neared the Bridge, Ray had almost completely talked himself out of the idea. Abruptly, he was shaken out of his thoughts by a loud clatter, and then Sara’s voice, loud and excited. Whatever was going on, it didn’t sound like a debrief. He made to step out into the Bridge when suddenly-

“Me and Ava, you and Ray! On a double date! It’ll be _perfect_!”

Ray froze, flattening himself against the wall. What.

“A double date?” And there was Leo’s slow drawl, sounding intrigued. Ray could picture his eyebrows raising. What the _heck_ was going on?

“Yeah! Think about it! We’ve got two long distance lovebirds,” She paused, and Ray imagined her fluttering her eyelashes, gesturing at... herself? He hadn’t realized things between her and Agent Sharpe were so serious. “And two people who are still, you know, figuring it out!” Another pause. Maybe she was gesturing at Leo, implying, _what_? Ray thought his eyes might pop out of their sockets. He wished he could get closer, or peer around the corner, but he knew Sara’s super-fast spy senses would catch him. He pressed against the wall, trying to hear Leo’s response.

“How, exactly,  would we coordinate this… event?”

“We’d find a way! _C’mon_ , Leo, this solves both our problems. Those of us who miss our significant other get to spend time together, and those of us who are, like, still working it out get to enjoy each other’s company in a friendly, not-all-alone setting!”

_Still working it out??_ Leo had barely flirted with him, in just one conversation! But Sara had definitely said ‘you and Ray’...

“It would be nice to take Ray on a proper date,” Leo mused, and Ray made a stifled coughing-choking-sputtering sound behind the hand clasped over his mouth. “Missions are fine and all, but an actual romantic evening sounds lovely. I’m not sure how I’d ask, though, or where we would all go…”

Ray had heard enough. He looked around wildly for some way to announce his presence, but found nothing. He wasn’t about to let Leo and Sara know that he had just eavesdropped on a conversation about him, but he really _did_ need to ask about the dimensional-energy scanner.

Holding his breath, Ray crept back down the hallway, slowly rolling each step to stay silent. When he was far enough away, he pivoted around and began stomping loudly back towards the Bridge, yelling up at the ceiling.

“HEY, GIDEON, COULD YOU TELL ME WHERE LEO IS? I NEED TO ASK HIM ABOUT THE DIMENSIONAL-ENERGY SCANNER!”

Gideon’s voice was tinted with amusement, but she spoke slowly to him as if addressing a hysterical toddler. “Leo is in the Captain’s office, Dr. Palmer, as I alre-”

“OK, THANKS, GIDEON! YOU'RE THE BEST!” Ray hollered, rounding the corner to the Bridge and striding into the office. Sara was halfway to her feet, and her face was equal parts incredulous confusion and determination not to ask. Leo was seated in Rip’s old chair with his legs swung over the arm, but he had an identical expression of confusion and, maybe, embarrassment? He was definitely blushing a little. _Oh, no_.

“...Ray? What’s up?” Sara asked, looking concerned.

“Whaaat? Nothing’s up! Everything’s fine, obviously, why wouldn’t everything be fine? I definitely didn’t hear any of what you guys were just talking about! I came here straight from the galley, which is where I just was, I mean, obviously, you probably heard me coming here! Sorry if I was kind of loud, I’m just…. excited! And happy, from talking to Nate! He’s such a good bro, so supportive, it just puts me in a good mood, and I feel like talking loudly! And a lot! Wow, I’m talking a lot. Kinda choking on my words here, haha, what’s new. Not that I, like, get choked a lot, more like I stumble on my words a lot! Although, now that I think about it, I think I’ve gotten choked in every villain fight we’ve had recently. Maybe it’s a thing. For them, not for me! I don’t have a choking thing,” and Ray had to force his mouth shut, take a deep breath, smile reassuringly. “I’m fine, thanks. What’s up with you?”

Sara stared at him for a solid ten seconds. She started to say something, then dropped her head into her hand. Sighed. “I’m great, Ray. Thanks for asking. You came here to ask Leo something?”

Leo had been watching the exchange with the air of a man seeing a slow-motion car crash, or maybe a baby giraffe trying desperately to stand but failing. He turned to Ray, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Right, yes!” Ray stammered. “I was thinking I’d see if I can improve the dimensional energy scanner, you know, try and pinpoint which dimension the breach came from, and-”

“I’m sure you’ll do a great job. Here,” Leo offered, handing him the device. “Sara, Amaya and I are scoping out Malachite when it opens; you could join us if you’re done by then?”

Their hands touched as Ray took it, and he jerked back, clutching the device to his chest. “Yep, no problem!” he yelped. “I mean, I’ll definitely have it done by then. _I_ might not go, though, I’m, uh, feeling kind of tired, I don’t know.”

Leo clapped him on the arm as he sat back down, giving Ray a smile. “Alright, hope you feel better. You did great with recon earlier, by the way.”

“Thank-” Ray started, but it came out high-pitched. He cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you! I have to go work on this now! Bye!” he called over his shoulder, speed-walking away. What on earth was he going to do now? He couldn’t just avoid Leo forever. Plus, he was the world’s worst liar, and Sara was a _spy_. She knew Ray well enough to read him like a book. So she undoubtedly knew exactly what was up with him. Great.

 

**-Sara & Leo-**

 

“I know exactly what is up with him,” mused Sara, staring in the direction of Ray’s clumsy exit. “‘Talking to Nate’, my ass.”

She knew about Heywood’s psychedelic root stash, and allowed it- officially for vision quests, unofficially for whatever Nate and Amaya wanted to do with their free time, as long as it didn’t affect missions. She just hadn’t expected Ray to be into that sort of thing.

Leo squinted at her. “I’m not sure what you mean, Captain.”

“Did you hear that ramble about choking? Did you see his _hair?_ Our Doctor Palmer is higher than a kite.”

“High?” Leo asked. He recognized it as a slang term, but on Earth-X it just meant happy, ecstatic, glowing. It probably meant the same thing here, but he thought it best to confirm.

“Yep,” Sara answered, raising her eyebrows at her whiskey glass. “I mean, I can’t say for sure, but he mentioned Nate, so. I don’t know if you remember, but Nate and Amaya used to, y’know,” she waved a hand around to indicate ‘magic drugged vision-y shit, I don’t know’. “But that was a while ago, and now I guess Ray is all about that. I wouldn’t have guessed it, myself, but as long as everyone stays clear-headed on missions... I just have _so_ many other things to worry about, you know?” She shrugged and drained the glass.

Leo blinked. Palmer... and Heywood? He never would have guessed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! The chaos slowly builds as the other Legends are drawn to different sides. In this fic, everyone gets a chance to tell a chunk of the story- it was the best way I could think of to really show what everyone thinks is happening at any given time. There's no real consistent POV, but hopefully you can still follow the narrative. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**-Amaya-**

 

_ Half an hour later _

_ 1988  _

_ Malachite nightclub _

_ San Francisco, CA, USA _

_ Amaya Jiwe was a warrior, a totem bearer, a former member of the Justice Society of America; she was powerful, graceful, intimidating. She was not, currently, sleeping with Nate Heywood. They had an on-again-off-again thing going, and at the moment were decidedly ‘off’. This would become relevant shortly. _

 

Amaya didn’t know much about the 80s, but she thought that Leo perfectly portrayed the punk style she saw expressed all around them as they waited in line outside Malachite. He had the clunky boots, the tight pants, the pins on his T-shirt, even the leather jacket- a giant, studded thing, not really necessary in the warm summer evening, that fit him perfectly. The real cherry on top, though, was his brooding expression. The crease between his brows hadn’t lifted since they’d left in the jumpship, and he kept glancing over like he wanted to ask her something.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked. He looked up, blinking.

“Hm? Oh,” he said, lips twitching into a side smile. “Sorry. I guess I might as well ask. I don’t mean to be… indelicate… but would I be mistaken in assuming that you and Dr. Heywood, ah,”

“No! I mean, yes! Yes, you  _ would _ be mistaken in assuming, um, that. Well, we used to. Not anymore.” She took a steadying breath, brushed her hair out of her face. This hairstyle was  _ big _ , teased out and curly and tall on top. She was a little afraid she would whap someone in the face if she turned too fast, but she liked it. She felt independent with this hair- like someone who bent rules, who didn’t pine when a not-really-relationship kinda-sorta ended. You couldn’t end what never really started up again, right?

“Just to be clear, this is ‘not anymore’ as in it’s in the distant past, or ‘not anymore’ as in it would be rough to hear he’s with someone else?”

“Nate’s with someone else?” she stared, incredulous. “Who?”

“Well- and I don’t know this for certain, but Sara said something earlier-”

“Wait, Sara knows about this? Is- is Nate with  _ Sara _ ?”

“No! Hell no. She just said, and, again, I don’t know for certain, especially because I thought there was a, shall we say, connection, between Dr. Heywood and yourself, but she mentioned you two used to-” he made a brief hand gesture, elegant despite its crude connotation. “And now, allegedly, Nate is,” he made the gesture again. “-ing with, well,”

“For God’s sake, just tell me!” 

“With Dr. Palmer!” 

“ _ Ray _ ?!”

“ _Allegedly_.”

That was the  _ last _ name she had expected. Nate and  _ Ray _ ? That was ridiculous! Absurd! It was… actually… kind of plausible?

“I guess… I mean, they  _ are _ best friends,” Amaya mused. “I never got that vibe from either of them, but then, to be honest, my- what do you call it? Gay radar?”

“Gaydar,” Leo offered, face deadpan.

“My ‘gaydar’, then- isn’t the best. How do you even know that?”

“I’ve recently found myself in possession of all manner of strange gay slang, recently, thanks to the efforts of a mutual friend of ours,” he drawled, glancing up as the friend in question elbowed her way towards them. “Ah, speak of the devil.”

“Talking about me?” Sara asked, raising an eyebrow. “You two better not have been planning a mutiny back here, I’ve barely been gone five minutes. I got us tickets, don’t ask how.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “I was just explaining to Ms. Jiwe how you found it necessary that I know words like ‘twink’ and ‘futch’, Captain.” 

“Of course! If you’re part of the community, you gotta know the lingo, Snart.”

“I- excuse me, okay, wait a second!” Amaya interrupted, raising a finger abruptly, bangles clattering. “Let's go back to what Leo said before, about what  _ you _ said, Sara- Nate and Ray? Since when? Why don’t I know?”

“Wait, what?” Sara asked, startled.

“She’s referring to the incident a few hours ago, Captain. With Dr. Palmer? Where you said-”

“Oh, right! Yeah, sorry, that slipped my mind for a second, I almost thought you meant… never mind.”

Amaya stared at her. “So… it’s true, then?”

“Hell if I know what everyone gets up to in their free time, I’m just the Captain,” Sara shrugged. “But Ray was in a  _ really _ good mood after ‘talking to Nate’, if you know what I mean, and said some other things… I’d say it’s a safe bet. As for why you didn’t know, I have no idea. I mean, I would have thought you-”

“No! Not anymore! We, um… not anymore. It’s better that way.”

Sara shrugged again. “Fair enough. The more clear-headed, the better, when it comes to missions.”

“Captain, a few hours ago we were drinking whiskey in your office, planning this mission,” Leo interjected.

“That’s different. Besides, that’s not all we were planning!” She threw him a conniving wink. “Oh, look, the line is starting to move! Let’s move, Legends. Leo, fill Amaya in on the way.”

Around them, people surged towards the open doors. Amaya lost track of Sara, and clutched at Leo’s leather-clad arm as she scanned the crowd. How had she vanished so quickly?

“Let the crush carry us in!” Leo shouted, leaning in close to be heard above the blaring synth pop that pulsed out of the doors, making her head spin. “We’ll find the Captain inside!”

As they had waited in line, the sun had set, casting a dusky haze on the hills as night quietly settled over the city. It was a warm evening, but there was a light breeze that stirred the palm fronds down the street. Coming into the club from outside was like stepping into a whole other world. 

The crowd pushed them through the door, and for a few minutes it was packed tight and Amaya felt like screaming, felt like reaching for the totem hidden in her tangle of necklaces and using elephant strength to clear a path- but then there was room, and the people around them were spilling out onto a green and white checkered dance floor. Leo squeezed her hand reassuringly, or maybe to politely signal her to ease her death grip on his arm. She squeezed back in wordless apology, and they both looked out at the scene before them. 

“Oh… wow,” she breathed. The cool, dark, quiet environment of outside was shattered, replaced by the hot crush of bodies, glaring lights that flashed through different shades of green, and the pounding melody of Whitney Houston wanting to dance with somebody. She recognized it from the music Nate used to play- nope. Not thinking about Nate, not right now. Focus. 

“C’mon,” she hissed in Leo’s ear. “Let’s find Sara, then we can find the basement. She’s got the dimensional-energy scanner, right? So her first.”

“Right,” he confirmed. “She was pushed in before we were, and probably didn’t get caught in that bottleneck at the door, so who knows where she’s at now. Let’s try and get up there, find a higher vantage point. We’ll never find her down here.”

They made their way towards the stairs that led up to a loft area clustered with booths and tables, presumably for when one had danced oneself to exhaustion and needed to sit and rest. The metal banister, the railing around the loft, and even the stairs themselves were made of shining metal that gleamed green, catching the light of the kaleidoscopic beams and reflecting it until the smokey air seemed to glow emerald. The effect was mesmerizing.

They slid into a booth near the railing to she could peer down at the crowd below. She had thought it would be easy to spot Sara- the Captain was wearing a bubblegum pink shirt/skirt combo with shoulder pads and matching leg warmers over matching pumps, and her hair was a giant glorious mess of hairspray and blonde waves. Unfortunately, that description matched several figures on the dance floor below, even just among the few she could make out under the green haze of lights and smoke. Visual searching was out, then. 

“The music is less deafening up here- we could try the comms,” she suggested. Leo nodded, fiddling with his earpiece.

“Sara? Hello? We lost you back there, Captain,” he said, adjusting the comm. “Hello? Hello, yes, sorry, it’s rather hard to hear you. We’re in the loft, above the dance floor- okay. See you in a tick.”

“Found her?” Amaya asked.

“Apparently the crowd pushed her to the back of the club when the doors opened. She found the way into the basement and procured a set of keys for the door, but she’s meeting us up here so we can scope it out together. Apparently there are ‘complications’,” Leo said, making finger quotes around the word.

“Got it.” She was quiet for a second, then squinted across the table at him. “Since we’ve got a minute, what was Sara talking about earlier? You guys were planning something, she said to fill me in?”

“Oh, that.” 

“Yes, that.” Was he  _ embarrassed _ ? Embarrassment was not an emotion she ever thought she’d see on Leonard Snart’s face. And she’d known a couple different Leonard Snarts.

“Essentially, we… you know, I assume, about the Captain and Agent Sharpe?”

“Yes?”

“Sara is of the opinion that it might be beneficial for them to be accompanied on a date by another couple. Specifically, Ray and I.” 

If she had a drink, Amaya would have just spit it across the table. As it was, she settled for staring dumbfoundedly at Leo. “ _ You and Ray? _   What happened to him and Nate?”  

“What? Not  _ your _ Ray, my Ray, back on my Earth!”

“Wait, so you have a Ray too? Like, Earth-X Ray Palmer?”

“No!” Leo sighed, dropping his head into one hand. “Ray Terrill. Originally from this Earth, Freedom Fighter on Earth-X with me, my partner of several years. The Ray? The best superhero ever- I may be biased, but it’s true. That Ray.”

“Oh,” Amaya blinked. “That… makes so much more sense. So, when you said Sara was planning a double date, you meant-”

“Her and Ava, me and Ray. I mentioned that I’ve been missing him lately, and the Captain was apprehensive about pursuing things with Ms. Sharpe. A double date would seem to be the perfect solution.”

“Seem to be?” she inquired, gently. Leo was always so dry and sarcastic; it was strange seeing this quiet, earnest side of him.

“I admit that I am unused to sharing my romantic life with my teammates- you may have noticed that I don’t often talk about Ray. That isn’t to say I don’t think about him. I do, all the time. I miss him tremendously. I was taken aback by the Captain’s offer, but, to be honest, I find myself looking forward to it.”

“That’s so sweet, Leo,” she said softly, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “I’m glad you told me.”

He shrugged one shoulder, sardonic Snart mask sliding back in place. “It’s no matter. Look, here comes the Captain.”

Amaya just grinned as he slipped out of the booth to greet Sara. Leo Snart had a soft side, who’d have known? It had been hilarious for a second there- to think that she had thought he meant  _ their _ Ray, before he explained! Ray with Nate was weird enough. It was good that he had explained so quickly, and that she and Sara were the only ones who knew- knowing the Legends, a simple misunderstanding like this would spiral rapidly out of control. She allowed herself a small chuckle at the thought. 

 

** -Zari- **

_ The Temporal Zone _

_ The Waverider _

_ The Galley _

_ Zari Tomaz was a totem bearer, an engineer, and a hero. She was not, however, particularly invested in other people’s love lives. She tended to tune out gossip, and tried her best to avoid giving advice or getting involved. Sometimes, however, exceptions had to be made. _

 

Zari had wandered into the galley to find Nate with his feet on the table and Mick with his face in the fridge. She had grabbed a juice and hopped up on the counter to swing her legs and mind her own business, but her teammates clearly had other plans. She couldn’t help but look up when Ray burst through the doors, bright red and talking a mile a minute. 

“Nate,  _ help _ ! I had to finish fixing the dimensional-energy scanner in the lab, and hand it off, but now they’re gone on their mission and it’s so much worse than we thought! Not only does Leo definitely like me, apparently it’s serious enough that he told Sara he’s gonna ask me on a double date with her and Ava!  _ Ava! _ As in  _ Agent Sharpe _ , the scary mean Time Bureau lady! You gotta help me, I don’t want to hurt his feelings, if I do then Sara will kill me, and probably Ava will kill me too,” Ray paused for breath, throwing himself into the chair next to Nate. “And  _ I’ll _ feel horrible for rejecting him, and Leo will feel horrible because I rejected him, and the whole team will feel horrible and everything will be weird!”

Zari blinked. “I’m sorry, Leo said  _ what now _ ?”

Ray looked up. His hair looked like an angry bird had been trapped in it for some time, but had recently managed to viciously fight its way free. “Oh, hey, Z. Hey, Mick. Yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on.”

“How about I recap what you told me earlier, then you tell us what just happened?” Nate asked, patting Ray on the arm. “We can, y’know, crowdsource a solution here.”

Ray looked like he might cry. “Okay,” he said, voice small. 

Zari finished her juice and hopped down from the counter. She tossed the bottle over her shoulder, flicking her fingers to send a gentle gust of air that boosted it into the trash chute. Having magic totem powers  _ rocked _ . But even totem bearers had to take one for the team sometimes. 

She pulled out a chair, only for Mick to drop into it. She made a ‘ _ not cool, dude _ ’ gesture, but he just rolled his eyes. “Just sit on the table, you’re the short one,” he said gruffly. “Three chairs, three grown men. One table, one pipsqueak.”

She shot him a death glare but climbed onto the table, crossing her legs. “Three chairs at  _ this  _ table, you mean. Why not use the dinner table? Why not pull up some extra chairs and, I don’t know, wait and get Amaya and Sara in on this? They’re the most emotionally mature of all of us, I’d say.”

Ray blanched. “No, we can’t! Sara’s in it with Leo, what if she tells him? And Amaya’s off on the mission with them! Plus, she’s so, like, cool, and wise. I don’t want to bother her.”

“You heard him, pipsqueak,” Mick said. “No snitching.”

“Fine. But at least I’m helping because I care about my friends, you’re just that one bitch who lives for drama.”

“You kidding? This is going to be  _ hilarious _ ,” Mick scoffed. “Of course I’m in.”

Ray groaned and buried his head in his arms. 

“We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, guys,” Nate said, continuing to pat him absent-mindedly. “We’ve got the dream team, right here! Okay, so apparently it started when…”

Zari settled in to listen to Nate’s explanation, pushing away a nagging feeling of doubt. Sure, she usually tried to stay out of things like this, but she wanted to help her friends. Plus, as Mick had said, it would probably be hilarious. What was the worst that could happen?

. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three quick things-
> 
> 1- Next chapter should be up in a week! 
> 
> 2- Your lovely comments give me the strength to keep writing when I'm worn out, so gimme some of that sweet sweet validation! Jk, but it really does make my day.
> 
> 3- I've got a fanart account on ig (@aprilbird), so hmu to talk about fic and fandom!
> 
> Thanks guys <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the others, whoops. It was one of the most fun to write, though. Enjoy!

**-Leo-**

_ 1988  _

_ Malachite nightclub _

_ San Francisco, CA, USA _

 

As Sara climbed the last of the stairs, the first thing Leo noticed was her hair. In his defense, the Captain had really gone all-out this time- her blonde waves had doubled in volume and were shining in the glimmering green light of the club. 

The second thing Leo noticed was that she wasn’t alone. The mission had only been the three of them: Sara, Amaya, and himself. Amaya was behind him in a booth and Sara was in front of him, that was the whole team right there, so who was the shadowy, smoke-obscured figure behind the Captain, reaching for her shoulder-

In one blurred movement, his cold gun was whipped out of the secret pocket in his leather jacket and aimed at the stranger, Sara’s voice was saying “Stand down, Snart!”, an unknown but familiar voice was yelling “Whoa!”, and a brilliant beam of green light was breaking through the haze to illuminate the startled face of… wait, what?

The third thing Leo noticed was that the man standing behind Sara was Oliver Queen. 

Well, almost. Admittedly, the version of Queen he had known for most of his life had been a tyrannical fascist monster, and was dead. So this wasn’t him, obviously. But this Oliver was not the man who had killed him, either. That Oliver- Sara’s Oliver, the one he had fought beside- moved like a panther, stood like he was about to fight, scanned a room with calculating eyes. The man in front of him held up shaking hands, eyes wide in genuine fear, strands of hair falling in his face. 

Leo lowered the cold gun, powered it down, and tucked it back in his jacket, glancing to Sara. “Mind telling me what’s going on, Captain?”

“I’d like to know that, too,” said Amaya, coming up behind him. She crossed her arms as she took in the stranger. “Who is this? And why does he look familiar?”

Sara grinned. “Leo, Amaya, this is Ollie Queen of Earth-23. Ollie, this is Leo Snart and Amaya Jiwe.”

The man gave a little nervous wave. “Hi. Thanks for not shooting me. Sick reflexes, though, dude.” He offered his hand.

Leo felt his eye twitch. Hearing the word ‘dude’ come out of Oliver Queen’s mouth was not something he had expected to encounter when he joined the Legends. Or ever. He shook the offered hand. Slightly clammy palm, good grip but nothing like the bone-crushing vice of the Green Arrow, and- were his nails painted? Leo gave the man a slow once-over. 

Ollie wasn’t taller than his doppelganger, as he had originally thought. He was wearing lifts- dark, high-heeled platform boots, laced around tight, high-waisted leather pants that sported nearly as many straps and buckles as the Green Arrow’s. He wore a dark tank top that showed off his arms (ripped, but scar-free). His sharp jawline was shadowed in a light scruff, leading up to a styled coif of dark blond hair with a few strands falling over well-groomed brows. His ears were pierced with several small rings, his eyes were lined and shadowed, and- Leo glanced at his hand, still clasped with his own in a handshake- his nails were definitely painted. Sure. Why the hell not?

“Wait, I know you!” Ollie said, grinning. He released Leo’s hand and pointed at him. “Or, at least, I know my version of you. Not, like,  _ my _ version, just the you from, what was it?”

“Earth-23, according to the dimensional-energy scanner,” Sara offered.

“Yeah, that. My Earth. Home. Whatever. Wow, that’s still so crazy to think about, that there’s like, infinite versions of everyone!”

“You’re telling us that you didn’t know about the multiverse before today?” Amaya asked.

“Hell no,” Ollie laughed. “Some of my friends are into that, like, sciencey shit, but I don’t really follow it.”

“What exactly  _ do  _ you do, if you don’t mind my asking?” Leo inquired. “It’s just that we also know a version of you, and you are, at a glance,” he looked Ollie up and down again. “Very unlike him.”

“I’m a dancer, for the club. This club, actually, only not  _ this _ one, just-”

“If I may sum up what you told me earlier?” Sara cut in. “Sorry. Basically, Ollie here is an award-winning pole dancer for a club called Malachite, identical in almost every way to this one, in Earth-23’s San Francisco. Earlier today, he was sent to the basement to bring up more alcohol and stumbled across a room full of, what did you call them?”

“Killer robots!” Ollie exclaimed, eyes wide. “Look, I didn’t mean to open any secret door, I was just leaning against the wall to adjust my grip, and next thing I know I’m in, like, some kind of lab? With a bunch of giant, metal, vaguely human-shaped machine things charging, or dormant, or something, along the walls. I freaked out and nearly dropped a crate of Belvedere, then I overbalanced trying to save it, then I tripped on a cord and all the robots’ eyes started glowing and they started getting up and coming towards me, then I backed into a switch and this glowing blue portal thing appeared, then it was really dark and I dropped the crate and ran upstairs and locked the door behind me. Only everyone here is dressed like it’s the 80’s, and apparently it  _ is _ the 80’s? So I’m in another dimension  _ and  _ another decade?”

That last part was directed at Sara, who nodded solemnly. Ollie grinned. “Wack. So, yeah, I’ve just been wandering around for the past few hours, trying to work up the courage to unlock the basement door, when suddenly the music turned on and people started coming in and I found Sara holding a bouncer’s arm behind his back asking for keys to the basement and I told her I had keys to the basement but there’s killer robots down there and then she was like ‘what the hell are you doing here and what the fuck are you wearing’ and I was like ‘what’ but then I explained and we came to get you guys!” 

There was silence, apart from the faint thumping of the beat below them.

Ollie beamed.

Leo stared. 

Sara gave a little ‘what can you do’ shrug.

Amaya cleared her throat. “Sorry, you’re a… pole dancer?”

“Really, that’s what stuck with you?” Sara asked.

“ _ Award-winning _ pole dancer,” Ollie confirmed. “How else would I get this body?” 

“Surviving on a remote island and mastering obscure fighting styles and various forms of weaponry for years?” Sara suggested. “Just… hypothetically.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, but I’ll have you know that pole dancing is a full-body workout that requires extreme physical-”

“Excuse me!” Leo interrupted, holding out his hands. “Can we get back to the part where you opened a portal leading directly to a bunch of killer robots in the basement of this club? The club that’s full of civilians?”

“It’s not like I opened it on  _ purpose _ , dude, come on.”

“ _ Please _ refrain from calling me ‘dude’.”

“We don’t know for sure that they’re  _ killer _ robots,” Amaya pointed out.

“They were angry, I’ll tell you that,” Ollie said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure if they came through with me, but I wouldn’t want to cross them again.”

“Don’t worry,” Leo said. “Even if they did come through, the fighting would be left to those of us with actual combat training.”

“Hey,” Sara said calmly. It was a gentle reprimand, but there was no room for argument.  _ Behave. _ Leo dipped his head, chastised. 

Satisfied, the Captain continued. “I’m going to call Ray and have him bring the Waverider in. Assuming that the breach in the basement that you two picked up on during recon is the same one that Ollie came through, these robots are most likely the cause of our anachronism. We want to prioritize stealth and containment, here. Hopefully if we bring the whole team in we’ll have more than enough manpower to subdue these things before they have a chance to get out and alter history.”

“Roger that, Captain,” Amaya said. 

Leo just nodded, giving a little mock salute as Sara turned away to speak into her comm. Ollie’s eyes widened at the gesture, and he nearly slapped himself in the face giving her a full salute. 

“That’s... not really necessary. C’mon, buddy, let’s go,” Amaya laughed, pulling him by the arm. “Lead us down to the basement of killer robots.”

Leo trailed after them, thinking. He couldn’t tell if Ollie had been trying to one-up him with the salute, or if he genuinely thought they saluted Captain Lance after every order and was trying to be respectful. He wondered which would be more annoying- okay, definitely the second one. That well-meaning sentiment, combined with the snotty attitude, made him equal parts angry and exhausted for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. 

Which didn’t quite make sense, actually.

Snarky do-gooders with hearts of gold? He was living on a ship full of people like that. He had served under leaders like that, was in love with a man like that- hell, he  _ was _ a person like that. So what was it about this guy that ticked him off? Leo could feel the answer looming in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away in favor of the obvious reasons.

Physique aside, Ollie was not a fighter. He wasn’t the Green Arrow, wasn’t a vigilante, didn’t have any training or experience. He was an unknown, and unknowns were unreliable. He was just a civilian, and therefore he was a risk. Simple. Leo just hoped that Sara and the others would remember that in the heat of battle. 

If it came to a battle. 

It always seemed to, with the Legends.

Lost in thought, Leo almost tripped as he stepped forward and the floor rose beneath his foot where he had expected another stair. He caught his balance, checking to make sure no one had seen, and forced the issue to the back of his mind- there were other matters at hand. For instance, he wanted to finish his conversation with Amaya- something in her response about Dr. Heywood hadn’t felt right. Perhaps there was unfinished business between them? God, he hoped not. Just once, he wanted a mission without unnecessary romantic complications. Was that too much to ask? 

The team skirted behind the dance floor as the DJ started a new record, and Ollie laughed out loud, presumably recognizing the song. Sara rolled her eyes, but Amaya just smiled. It was a vaguely familiar drumbeat, dropping into a melody Leo could have sworn he’d heard before. But where? So much of Earth-1’s music sounded the same… 

Amaya laughed, noticing his confusion. “Oh, Leo. You’re lucky you’re still so new to the team that Nate hasn’t rick-rolled you yet.” She smiled, but it was smaller, and sadder, than before.

Well. Song aside, she clearly wasn’t over Heywood. What was Nate thinking, moving on so quickly? It would only hurt both of them in the end, not to mention Ray. Leo made a mental note to talk to Palmer about it as soon as possible. He was pretty sure that the two of them had developed a rapport to the point where such questioning could come across as casual.

Sara led them past the bar and into a back hallway, making several turns before stopping in front of an unremarkable door. She held out her hand, and Ollie pulled a tangle of keys from some invisible pocket in his buckle-studded leather pants and dropped them in her palm. “They worked when I ran up in a panic and locked the door behind me, despite being from another universe,” he said. “So, you know. Hopefully they still will.” 

“Aren’t we gonna wait for the rest of the team?” Amaya asked.

“Nope,” Sara said, popping the ‘p’. She examined the lock, then the keys, then selected one and slid it in. Ollie raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, impressed. Sara shot him a grin. “We’re scoping out the basement, fighting some robots, and using the dimensional-energy scanner to confirm the location of breach activity in the secret room- assuming the secret room exists in this dimension. Then we unlock the back door for the others.”

“Ray and I looked for a back entrance; we didn’t find one,” Leo pointed out. Sara shot him a look, and he shot an apologetic glance back. He wasn’t  _ trying _ to be contrary, it just… kept happening.

“It’s only accessible through a complicated alley network behind the building, you probably missed it,” Ollie protested. “I’ve worked here for years, I know this place like the back of my hand. Well, I know the version of this building that exists 30 years from now in another dimension and is a gay strip club. Close enough?”

“We’re taking the chance on the back door because a man in a flying suit of armor, a woman floating on wind, a man made of metal, and a guy with a fire-shooting gun all barging through the dancefloor will only cause chaos,” Sara said, cutting off Leo’s response. “Something is gonna cause an anachronism, remember? Just eliminating the variables, here. No team of superheroes crashing through the front door. No forcing a wildly popular club to close early on a Friday night. No letting a bunch of inter-dimensional killer robots out to wreak havoc on San Francisco. Got it?”

They all nodded. 

“Alright. Here’s the plan. Amaya will lead us down the stairs and turn the lights on. We may need to fight our way to the door to get the reinforcements. No matter what, we’re not letting any robots out. We can do this. Amaya?” 

Amaya pushed her teased-out hair away from her face, took a deep breath, and pressed a hand to her totem. Her body arched as a huge form of blue mist bloomed around her in the shape of an owl, and her eyes shone with white-blue energy.

“That is  _ so cool _ ,” Ollie whispered. She grinned at him, eyes still glowing. Leo rolled his eyes. Sara kicked the door open.

Amaya ducked through, scanning the pitch-black stairway. “It’s not too steep, and there’s a handrail,” she whispered. “There’s a light switch at the bottom. Room looks empty past that.”

“Okay, let’s move,” Sara hissed, slipping through the door after Amaya. Leo followed her, half-heartedly motioning for Ollie to go between them. The door swung closed behind him, plunging the stairway into darkness. He waved a hand in front of his face, the other gripping the handrail. Nothing. 

“Shit, it’s darker than I remember,” Ollie whispered. “Good thing you guys have freaky powers, huh?”

“Shut up, keep going, be careful,” Leo muttered. The last thing they needed was for him to trip over his ridiculous shoes and fall down the stairs. 

“I’m at the bottom,” Amaya called, just above a whisper. “No robots. There’s one big room, concrete floors and walls. Some crates and shelves, and some miscellaneous, uh, nightclub stuff. I think we’re clear, I’m turning the lights on.”

There was a dull whirr overhead as row upon row of lights flicked on in succession. Leo blinked in the sudden light. The basement was much bigger than he had pictured, though it was cluttered with cheap shelving and crates of alcohol. In one corner of the room, against the far wall, it seemed that an attempt to renovate had been abandoned: the concrete floor was covered in a peeling roll of laminate tile, and several stripper poles were installed in front of a paneled wall. The corner was like a strange little island amidst the warehouse vibes that the rest of the room gave off. 

Chaos aside, there was a clear absence of killer robots.

Amaya touched her totem, and the otherworldly glow of her eyes was replaced with their usual dark brown. “No need for owl eyes, now,” she explained in a whisper. 

“I think- wait, should I still be whispering?” Ollie asked. 

Sara shrugged. “Looks like we’re alone in here, but maybe we should, just to be safe.”

“Okay,” he said, in a strangled stage whisper. “The door should be in that weird corner to the right, if the layout is the same-”

“I’m  just messing with you, look around,” Sara scoffed, gesturing to their surroundings. “No robots. Be as loud as you want.”

“I swear, they followed me through. I remember one of them tried to swing at me, but I ducked and ran into the wall because it was pitch black, but that seemed to close them off somehow? Then I sprinted for the stairs. Maybe they’re still trapped in the secret room, behind the wall!”

“Right, the secret room from another dimension that  _ definitely  _ transferred to this one,” Leo said, derisively. “Look, let’s just open the door for the rest of the team and tell them to stand down.”

“What do you mean, stand down?” 

It was the petulant tone in Ollie’s voice that sent Leo over the edge. “I mean, whatever secret lab exists in your dimension probably isn’t here, 30 years and a universe away. It must be the breach itself that causes the anachronism. Or maybe it’s you.”

“Okay, is there some issue here that I’m unaware of? Is there something you wanna say to me?” Ollie challenged, voice rising. He sounded so brash, so  _ young _ .

“Not particularly, no,” Leo shot back, keeping his own voice dry, his expression sardonic.

Ollie’s eyes flashed. It would have been dramatic even without the eyeliner. “Really? You think I haven’t noticed you rolling your eyes after everything I say? I get it, I’m not part of your team, but-”

“Hey!” Amaya cut in, voice low. “You  _ are _ a part of the team, Ollie, at least for this mission-”

“Why?” Leo interrupted, anger creeping into his words. “No, really, why? Because he has the Green Arrow’s face? Because Sara has history with his doppelganger? Well, I have history with a doppelganger of his, too. Pardon me if it’s disconcerting to see my greatest enemy, the leader of the fucking  _ Nazis _ , with eyeliner and high heels.”

There it was, the truth he had tried to ignore upstairs. Ollie’s sassy-but-strong attitude was so reminiscent of everyone Leo loved and respected, but his face… that face only evoked hatred, deep and primal. The contrast made Leo want to throw him through a wall, or maybe just throw up.

“Leo, that’s  _ enough _ ,” Sara interjected, pointing at him with an air of finality. “Ollie is a part of this team because he came through the breach we’re tracking, and because he’s helping us and we’re helping him. That’s what we do. Where did this come from? You didn’t have a problem working with Oliver, before.”

“That’s… different. It’s just,” Leo muttered. He didn’t know how to explain. Even in anger, that Oliver had been perfectly in control, completely aware of his body and face and tone. He was stern, and had a darkness inside him, but he was a leader. A fighter. 

Ollie, on the other hand, wore every emotion in his body language, in his painted eyes and perfect eyebrows. It was one thing to see the face of his enemy on a man who actively fought his demons, but what did it mean that in some universe, the monster he had fought for most of his life was an innocent civilian? That he painted his nails, lined his eyes, had a soft, high, voice? That he was just some- 

“You’re not him, okay?” Leo said, to Ollie, and he felt the next words coming, knew how bad they would sound without context, and tried to hold them back, but it was too late. “You’re just some stripper.”

There was a beat of silence.

“ _ Jesus _ , okay,” Ollie said, and suddenly he was completely closed off, voice flat, posture straightening. Gone were the popped hip, the head tilt, the expansive gestures. He folded his arms. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about, but it doesn’t matter. Go get the rest of your team. I’m gonna go check the paneled wall over there, try and find the room with the breach so I can go back to my life as a _ deviant _ and get out of your way.” He spun on his heel and stalked off.

“No, wait, I promise there was, was unspoken context for that, I didn’t,” Leo began, passing a hand over his face, but Ollie was already gone.

Sara’s expression was glacial. “Didn’t what, Leo? Didn’t mean to sound like a homophobic asshole?”

“I’m gonna, um, let the team in,” Amaya announced, backing away. “I think they’re here. I’m just gonna… yep.”

“Homopho-  _ what?!”  _ Leo asked, looking up incredulously. “I’m  _ gay _ . I’m not-”

“Obviously, you’re not, but it would’ve sure sounded that way if I didn’t know you,” Sara pointed out. “As it stands, it just seems like you’ve got a derogatory view of strippers.”

“I don’t have a derogatory view of anything, except for fucking  _ Nazis _ ! This is about my own issues, I shouldn’t have said anything to Ollie-”

“Good, you can tell him that. The second this is over, you’re apologizing.”

“I really doubt he wants to talk to me.”

“Well, that’s your issue, you’ll have to-” 

“Hey, guys!” called Ray eagerly. Clearly the others had found the back entrance and Amaya had let them in, because they were now crowding through the door, all suited up. Leo spared a moment to wonder how Ray had fit his helmet over the disaster of gel and hairspray that was his hairdo, then dismissed the thought. There were other things to worry about, and he needed to pull himself together.

“We’re talking about this later,” Sara promised/threatened in a low voice, before striding over to the rest of the team. “Alright, folks, there’s been a slight re-adjustment of plans.”

“Where are the robots? Z said there’d be robots to kill,” Mick demanded. 

“Hey, guys?” Leo heard, from the corner across the room. He ignored it.

Sara continued. “There are no robots, sorry, turns out that-”

“GUYS!” Ollie yelled, and this time there was something in his voice that made Leo sigh, and turn away from the others.

“I’ve got this,” he muttered, marching over to the strange furnished corner where Ollie stood, staring at the paneled wall. Only, he wasn’t staring at the wall. He was staring at a rectangle of empty shadow where a panel had just been. 

“See?” Ollie said, smugly. “Secret room.”

Leo brought a finger to his lips, shushing him. 

Ollie made a face in protest. “The hell do you think-” he started, but Leo shushed him again and pointed into the shadows.

“Look,” he said softly. 

“Oh, shit,” Ollie murmured. “Those are the…”

“Robots,” Leo finished grimly. 

The two of them stared, enmity temporarily forgotten. It was dark in the room behind the wall, but there was enough light to make out the dozen or so hulking shapes lurking against the walls, reflecting a soft metallic gleam where the light shone. The creatures were completely still, but were undoubtedly humanoid in shape. They seemed to be dormant, or sleeping, or something- there was no sound or movement from any of them, and the places where eyes would be were blank, vacant outlines on their faces.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Leo whispered, never taking his eyes off the one closest to the door. “Clearly, opening the door didn’t wake them up, so hopefully closing it won’t either. We’re gonna-  _ what are you doing? _ ” 

The last words were hissed at Ollie, who had stepped forward, wandering past the doorway, tilting his head to peer into the gloom. “Just, hang on, there’s something familiar about them,” he murmured, folding his arms and planting his feet in an unconscious mirror of the robots’ stance. “They almost look like, but no, wait-”

“I don’t care, get out of there!” Leo whispered angrily, biting off his words in an effort to control the volume. Ollie turned, eyes wide, as if he’d only just noticed he had walked into the middle of a pitch-black storage room full of giant metal silhouettes.

“Right, sorry! I just thought I-” but then he was turning, too fast, and those ridiculous heeled boots were catching on something, and he was throwing out a hand to catch himself, and Leo was still standing in the doorway, too far away, and so Ollie grabbed frantically at the darkness to prevent himself from hitting the concrete floor.

It happened in an instant, and Leo surveyed the aftermath: Ollie had caught himself on something and regained his balance, gripping it tight. They both realized at the same time that the thing he had grabbed was the upper arm of one of the robots, and as his tight grip pushed into metal plates Leo heard the soft click of a mechanism snapping into place. The robot’s eyes glowed red.

There was a beat of silence. Then came a whir, and a clunk, and then the room was full of whirs and clunks as every robot straightened up, eyes glowing, powering up. Waking up.

There was no time to think. Leo darted forward, grabbed Ollie by the wrist, and  _ yanked _ , and then they were back in the main basement, blinking in the sudden light. He slapped at the panel until the wall slid shut, but the noises behind it continued. He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, having lost it to the sprinting and the saving and the  _ furious annoyance _ that was rising in his chest-

“Uh, Leo? Mind telling us what’s going on?” Nate asked, coming up behind them with Ray on his heels. Leo held up a hand as he took deep breaths, searching for his voice.

Next to him, Ollie was in a similar state. His chest heaved as he choked out, “Secret- secret room. Robots. Awa-”  _ cough  _ “Awake. The robots are awake.”

“Wait- is that,” Ray gasped, noticing Ollie for the first time. “Is that, what? How?”

“It’s the Green Arrow,” Nate whispered reverently, in a single rush of breath.

Leo rolled his eyes. “We do  _ not _ have time for this. Okay, Palmer, Heywood, meet Earth-23’s Oliver Queen-” 

“I go by Ollie, hi-"

“No, he’s not the Oliver you know. He tripped through a breach and just woke up a whole crew of evil robots that he brought with him from his evil robot dimension, robots who are at this very moment trying to attack us, so we  _ do not have time for this _ !”

The paneled wall shook as the clangs behind it grew louder.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw Sara’s head go up at the sound, saw her take in the situation and react, running towards them with the rest of the team just as Ollie shot back, “Wait, I’m sorry, ‘evil robot dimension’? My dimension doesn’t just have evil robots  _ walking around _ -”

The wall exploded into splinters with a crash, throwing them back as the robots burst through. He heard and saw Nate steeling up beside him, but his attention was caught on the machines above them. In the light, Leo could see that they were each about seven feet tall, shaped vaguely like huge, muscular men- only, their muscles were metal and their eyes were glowing. They seemed to be emerging single-file, arranging themselves into an intimidating formation of gleaming chrome.

“Well, shit,” Sara sighed. “Looks like there are robots after all.”

“Now  _ this _ is what I’m talkin’ about,” Mick grinned, powering up his gun. 

The other Legends settled into battle stances. Leo stood, shakily, and he and Nate helped Ray to his feet. Maybe it was his imagination, but it almost seemed like Ray hesitated before grabbing their hands, and averted his eyes as he was pulled up. Was he… blushing? It was hard to tell behind the helmet. He could feel Nate’s metallic gaze staring past him, at Ray, some indecipherable conversation happening in facial expressions obscured by a visor screen and metal features. God, he had almost forgotten about those two in the midst of his minor crisis and, oh, right, the giant robots about to  _ kill them all _ . 

“Focus, boys,” Leo reprimanded them, squeezing Ray’s hand hard to snap him out of whatever daze he’d gone into, then releasing it and knocking against his helmet. “Fighting first, flirting later.” 

Ray made a choking sound, but Leo ignored it in favor of drawing the cold gun from his leather jacket and squaring his stance. He should have seen this coming. With the Legends, no mission would be complete without robots, at least one major battle, and, of course, unnecessary romantic complications. He almost wished he had never realized what was going on.

The robots charged.

 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me & let me know what you think in the comments or on Insta! (@_aprilbird_)
> 
> If anyone wants to make art/edits of Ollie I would cry real tears and name a child after you


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action! Fighting! More misunderstandings! Wowie

**_-Ray-_ **

 

Ray _really_   wished he had never realized what was going on.

It was a silly thing to focus on, as the robots stormed towards them, but he fretted nonetheless. He had been doing this for a while, after all, and it was easy enough to let his instincts and his tech do most of the work for him - duck, turn, fire, shrink, kick, grow, dodge, repeat - leaving his mind free to spiral.

Ever since he had begun suspecting Leo’s crush, Ray found himself faltering his way through every interaction, not wanting to offend, but not wanting to lead him on either. He had almost convinced himself that he was making the whole thing out to be bigger than it was, but after confiding in Nate, Mick, and Zari, he wasn’t so sure.

The line of robots and the line of Legends had, at this point, collided and tangled into smaller clusters of combat. Ray barely saw it. He shrank down and flew up, dodging a blast of fire from Mick’s gun. He hovered above a robot, peering into the circuitry on the back of its metallic neck, scanning for weaknesses- some sort of shutdown code, maybe? There always seemed to be one. This was just another mission, after all,  just another robot fight. He loved fighting as a Legend, loved being The Atom, but at the moment he had other things on his mind.

What had Leo said, just then? _Fighting first, flirting later_ _?_ Leo had looked right at him as he said it, holding his hand tightly, touching his face through the helmet. Coming from someone else, Ray could have written it off as the pseudo-flirting banter that passed for humor among the team- for example, he and Nate often joked around when ‘heroically rescuing’ each other from various situations, dramatically calling out ‘ _my hero_ ’ or pretending to swoon when being carried to safety- but that was different, everyone understood that they were only joking! No one _actually_ thought they were flirting- they were _Nate and Ray,_ for gosh sakes, they were just like that.

Leo… wasn’t like that. His sense of humor was the same dry sarcasm favored by the original Snart, delivered with a deadpan expression and only the twitch of an eyebrow to let on that he was kidding. That eyebrow twitch hadn’t been there, though, when he gripped Ray’s hand and promised to flirt later, or when he consoled him about Kendra and offered himself as a ‘partner, or, presumably, when he straight up told Sara that he was going to ask Ray out...

A loud beeping from his suit snapped Ray back to the present. He stared at his helmet display, where a notification informed him that the suit had finished scanning and found… nothing. What kind of evil robots were these? No universal shutdown code, no self-destruct sequence, no dumb coding errors, nothing. Except, maybe-

Ray activated his comm, growing back to full size. “Hey, Captain?”

“What? Please tell me you found some weakness for these things,” Sara’s voice hissed in his ear. “My usual robot-fighting technique of ‘hit it until it stops moving or self-destructs’ isn’t working out.”

Ray ducked a punch and fired back, knocking the thing to the ground for a second before it started getting up. “Well, yes and no. I can’t find a self-destruct sequence, or any universal kill switch. There is a sleep code controlled by some wiring on the back of their necks, but we’d have to get them all individually, and they come to each other’s aid when we get too close. Looks like whoever made these bad boys actually knew what they were doing.”

“What? Competent evil-robot builders? Now that’s just unfair.” Across the room, Sara kicked a robot in the chest, making it stumble towards Zari, who promptly summoned a blast of wind that threw it into the wall. “Tell me you have some good news.”

“Sort of? Look, they all came out single file, and took the time to line up, right? And they seem to be coordinating their attacks, separating us, learning our tactics. From what I can see, they’re connected somehow- not quite a hive mind, but at least a shared set of instructions, and some kind of information-sharing wavelength that I _think_ I can disrupt. Hopefully, if we isolate them, we can activate the sleep codes one at a time.”

“Whatever it is, do it fast.”

Ray shrank back down and zipped towards the robot Zari had just wall-slammed. It was already stirring, but he was able to dart into the circuitry and plug in his left gauntlet, coding frantically. He scanned the visor display when he was done, then unplugged himself and flew up and away, growing to full size in time to screech to a landing near the wall.

To his right, he saw Amaya, surrounded by the blue _ashe_ of a giant bear, backhand a robot away from Oliver- no, Ollie. He’d almost forgotten about their non-mechanical guest in all the confusion. He resolved to greet the guy properly as soon as this was over.

“Ready to disrupt the wavelength at your signal, Captain,” he reported. “Pulling the little red wire at the back of their necks should send them right to sleep, if I’m reading the code correctly. Let everyone know, would you?”

“Alright, kiddos, this is your Captain speaking,” Sara called over the main comm channel. “Ray found a way to isolate these little shits from each other. We’re aiming for a red wire, back of the neck, instant sleepytime for robots. Roger?”

Sounds of assent rose from the others, and Sara yelled, “Now!”, and Ray sent the code, and a couple things went wrong very quickly.

It wasn’t that the disruption code didn’t work. It worked perfectly, actually, breaking the robots out of their smooth, synchronized attacks, leaving them separated without the programming instructing them to run to each other’s defense.

Unfortunately, that meant they were now free to focus on their main objective, which was, apparently, to escape the basement and get up into the club itself. This was, Ray remembered, the exact outcome they were there to prevent. Great.  

“I don’t think that did what we wanted it to,” Zari sighed, summoning a small whirlwind to lift herself off the ground. “This might get ugly.”

Ray had been in many situations that could be described as having ‘gone ugly’, and he wasn’t sure this would rank highly among them. It was, however, a bit of a mess. The robots, freed from their protective programming, were able to bolt for the stairs one at a time while the team scrambled to chase them down.

Without discussing it past a series of quick nods, the team split up. Each Legend faced off against a robot- or two, in the Captain’s case. Fighting one-on-one, Ray was able to distract his robot with a blast to the face before shrinking down and zipping behind it, pulling the wire before it had time to react. The machine straightened up instantly, freezing back into a parade-rest stance, eyes no longer glowing. He grew to full size and eyed its vacant expression distrustfully, but it seemed to be asleep for good. Looked like the sleep code worked, at least.

He was turning to fly over and help the others, had already lifted a few inches off the ground, when he was sideswiped by a massive weight hurtling past him. The force of the hit spun him through the air, and he hit the ground hard enough to roll. He propped himself up on his good elbow and looked around dazedly. The suit had taken the brunt of the impact, but not all of it, Ray realized, wincing as he tried to move his wrist. Raising his gaze, he saw, distantly, that everyone else was still locked in combat- everyone, that is, except for Leo, who was sprinting towards the stairs.

Ray pushed himself to his feet, swaying little as he stumbled towards his friend. “Leo, wait up! What- what’s going on, what-”

“It got away!” Leo interrupted, breathing heavily, stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He smacked his cold gun against the wall a few times, then brought it close to his face, fingers flying over the surface. “My gun, that bucket of bolts hit me and I dropped my- _shit_ \- it stepped on my gun. Bastard got away. I saw it hit you, it’s headed upstairs, I need to- but now something’s jammed, and I need to- _dammit-_ fix it in the next couple seconds or go without-”

“Go without?” Ray asked incredulously. “You’re running alone after an evil robot without backup  _and_ unarmed? No way! Take someone with you!”

Leo rolled his eyes dismissively.

Ray had been confused about a lot that day, but he was sure of this. Leo couldn’t just run off alone without weapons and hope for the best- but, wait, who else did he know who made a habit of that? Relying on primitive weapons, or none at all, but extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and prone to rushing into danger alone?

Looking around wildly, Ray found the figure he was looking for hanging back from the whirlwind that was Sara and her unlucky opponents. “Hey, Oliv- I mean, Ollie! Ollie, get over here!”

“What the hell are you-” Leo started, but Ollie was already jogging over.

“What can I do to help? I felt kind of useless over there, Captain Lance sort of has it under control,” he shrugged, and wow, ok, he looked _exactly_ like Oliver, but not really, and he sounded so different, all soft-pitched and smiling. Ray would have thought he was used to the idea of doppelgangers after Leo, but man, this was weird.

Leo. Right. Leo needed help.

“Go with him!” Ray burst out, cutting him off. Ollie’s expression hardened as he noticed Leo.

“Please,” Ray added, ignoring their shocked faces. “He- Leo, you can’t just rush off on your own, you need backup! And he’s, you know,” he gestured at Ollie, at his leather clothes, at his chiseled muscles, at his smeared eye makeup. This was the _Green Arrow_ , for gosh sakes.

“Are you kidding?” Leo questioned, sounding shocked. “I- no. No way.”

“I know you’re used to working on your own,” Ray began, but Leo cut him off.

“You think I need backup? Fine. _You_ come with me.”

Ray froze. No way- there was _no way_ Leo’s crush had progressed to the point where he would compromise his safety, the safety of the team, the whole damn _mission,_  by choosing him over the _Green Arrow_. Was there?

“ _Me_?!” he choked out, sputtering. “Not him? But-”

“Why the hell would I choose him when I can have you? Look, Palmer, I’ll explain later, okay? God knows there’s a lot to talk about- but right now, I need to go after this bastard. Come with me or don’t.” He held Ray’s gaze for a moment longer, then turned and ran up the stairs.

Ray wondered why Leo even used the cold gun if just the ice-blue of his gaze could freeze someone as completely as he was frozen right then. He felt the cold of it in his bones, felt the frozen seconds stretch into an eternity.

_Why the hell would I choose him when I can have you?_

There was… no other way to interpret that, he was sure. His brain seemed to be trying, distantly, though- spinning the memory of his words around like a puzzle piece, trying to make it fit somewhere, anywhere else. It was getting hard to breathe, so Ray got rid of the visor, then the whole helmet, and ran a hand over his head, thoughts spiraling madly-

A voice cut through the fog. “Dude, just- woah. Your hair is  _seriously_ wanky.”

Another frozen instant stretched out as he looked up, staring into the eyes of not-Oliver-Queen.

_Why the hell would I choose him when I can have you?_

Somehow, he found his voice, ignoring the chaos in his mind. “Go with him,” he whispered.

“I promise you he doesn’t want that,” Ollie started, but stopped at the look on Ray’s face. “Jesus, _fine_. We’ll both go.”

_Why the hell would I choose him-_

Okay. Okay, good. They could both go. Thank goodness for a plan, for a course of action, for something to focus on!

Ray felt infinitely better as he straightened up, tugging his helmet on and pulling the visor back into place. He exchanged a nod with Ollie, then powered up the suit, flying up the stairs as the vigilante took them two at a time. They crashed through the door at the top, which had been hanging open, causing it to crash wildly against the wall.

They burst into an empty, nondescript hallway- no signs of the robot or of Leo in either direction. A faint, distant beat thrummed in the walls. Ray hovered for a second, listening, then- “That way,” Ollie announced, wheeling about to the left. “I heard a crash from this way, come on-”

As soon as the two of them rounded the corner, though, something huge and metal stumbled towards Ray’s face. By instinct, he shrank and dodged it, diving to push Ollie out of the way as well. He sprang to full size in time to realize that the thing was, in fact, one of the robots, with a determined Leo hanging from one arm, clinging as the creature did its best to fling him off. They were in a continuation of the same hallway, crappy and tan with exposed piping on the ceiling, and barely enough space for the thing to spin wildly, let alone for them to intervene.Ray saw the moment Leo noticed them standing there, because his eyes widened and he momentarily lost his grip.

Acting on instinct, Ray swooped in to distract the robot, but it snatched him out of the air by his throat with its Leo-free hand, slamming him up against the wall. The suit took most of the pressure, preventing his neck from being snapped, but he could feel the dwarf-star alloy slowly being crushed into his trachea. He gasped for air against the thing’s inflexible grip, frantically twisting his injured wrist around from where it was pinned against his chest. He aimed the gauntlet, braced himself for the pain, and flexed his fist hard. The ensuing laser blast threw the robot back and Ray to the ground, where he wheezed until he was strong enough to prop himself up on his good arm. He looked around blearily, eyes widening as he took in the situation.

The robot had reverted all its attention to flinging Leo off, and was stampeding in circles as Ollie darted about underfoot, looking for an opening and narrowly missing the wild swings of its limbs. Finally, with a metallic screech, Leo lost his grip and flew towards Ray, who scarcely had time to fly to meet him before they collided, tumbling back to the ground in a tangle that barely softened the blow.

Ray pulled himself out from under Leo, who was bleeding from a scrape on his head. His shoulder looked dislocated, too, but at least he was conscious and breathing. Ray lowered him against the wall gingerly, then stared in horror as the robot charged past them towards the sole remaining focus for its rage- Ollie, who turned and sprinted back the way they had come, leading it away.

“I’m fine, I’ll be fine, go help him-” Leo hissed, and Ray took off, rocketing after the creature- but he was too late.

He saw, as if in slow motion, Ollie wheeling about on a heel in front of the basement door, a silhouette of stance and shadow, as the thing grew closer.

He saw him spring at the robot as it rushed towards him, as if to leap into its arms- but at the last second, he shot out a hand to grab at the exposed piping of the low ceiling, swinging himself up and around, letting go just in time to latch on to the back of its neck like the world’s worst piggyback ride.

He saw a wild, exuberant grin light up Ollie’s features as he beamed back over his shoulder for a single glowing second, right before the robot’s momentum carried it over the threshold of the door and sent it flying down the stairs.

Ray was aware of the crash, and of Leo limping to his side.

Then he was zipping down to the basement, where the stark lighting illuminated a scene out of a frozen dreamscape. Sara and the others were surrounded by the slumped forms of sleeping robots, scattered across the vast room, but all his focus was on the crumpled chrome wreckage strewn about the concrete floor, and the smaller figure lying farther away, as if he had pushed away from the robot as they fell.

There was a ringing in his ears. Ray landed unsteadily at the bottom of the stairs and bent over to drop his helmet on a warped piece of plating, then pushed his hair out of his face as he walked over to crouch above Ollie. He was motionless, and battered, and his left leg was at a horrible angle beneath him, but there wasn’t too much blood.

Ray scanned him as quickly as he could without messing up the data as the others hesitantly crowded around them. The battered gauntlets took a few too many heart-rending seconds to load the results, but when they did Ray felt himself sag to the ground with relief.

“He’s alive,” he declared, and the Legends broke into relieved sighs. “We need to take him to Gideon, but he’s alive.”

“Good,” Sara said softly. There was a protective look on her face that Ray had rarely seen before. She took a deep breath, then continued in her Captain voice. “We checked out the ‘secret room’- nothing, just storage. We did, however, find evidence of a prior breach in that location from Earth-23, but that can wait. For now: we beat the robots, no one died, and we prevented an Anachronism. Good work, Legends. Let’s get back to the ship.”

Ray was faintly aware of Nate carefully lifting Ollie, of the other Legends agreeing to head out the back. By the time he summoned the energy to sit up, Leo had come down the stairs. He was gingerly holding one arm close to his body, but offered the other one to Ray.

“I’m good,” he sighed, standing up. Even after everything that had just happened, he heard the words ringing in his head. _Why the hell would I choose him when I can have you?_ If Leo felt that strongly, it was too late for no one to get hurt. Ray could still do everything in his power not to lead him on, though.

“I jammed the basement door,” Leo said, letting the offered hand drop without comment and tucking it into the pocket of his leather jacket as they headed out. “We can come by in a bit and clean up, but in the meantime it would be nice to keep the number of memories we have to alter at a minimum.”

“Good thinking,” Ray said, holding the door for him. “Look, Leo… we should talk. Soon. Probably. About a couple things.”

“Alright. How about after we get out of the Medbay?”

Ray studied Leo’s expression, but he didn’t look excited or filled with dread, he just looked… apprehensive. “Sounds great,” he responded, and they walked the rest of the alley to the jumpship in silence.

External silence, that is. Internally, Ray was screaming at the top of his lungs, and had been for the entire conversation. At least it would all be out in the open soon, though. He didn’t know if he could handle any more surprises.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat in the comments! Say hi on Insta! Tell me your theories for the new season!
> 
> Also: all the Legends will get a chance to tell their point of view- can you guess who's up next?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where it really gets complicated.
> 
> Quick recap: Ray, Nate, Zari, and MIck think that Leo likes Ray. Leo and Amaya think that Ray is with Nate, which they are upset about- Amaya because she still loves Nate and Leo because he knows Amaya still loves Nate. Sara thinks Nate and Ray are doing drugs. And that's what you missed on Glee! 
> 
> Enjoy

**_-Mick-_ **

_ Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco _

_ The Waverider, cloak: on _

_ Medbay _

_ Mick Rory was a criminal, a pyromaniac, and a miscreant. He was also a Legend. Most importantly, though, Mick was a loyal teammate and friend, and he could always be counted on in a crisis- to pull out the popcorn, that is.   _

 

Technically, there was no reason for Mick to still be in the medbay. Gideon had healed his split knuckles in a matter of seconds, and there was a chilled sixpack waiting in the galley and a good nine hours of sleep waiting in his bunk. Sure, everyone else had stayed after being healed, sitting on counters and huddling around the two figures still on the reclined chairs, but Mick had no real obligation to hang around. Except, of course, for what Zari had said earlier: he was that one bitch who lived for drama. And this room was full of it. 

Mick settled himself against the wall he was leaning on, and reached into his jacket for one of his hidden flasks. After years of dealing with Leonard, Team Flash, and now the Legends, he had gotten pretty good at detecting when shit was about to Go Down. Speaking of which-

“I’m fine, Nate, really-” Ray was protesting, waving Heywood’s hands away as he pulled himself upright on the chair. 

Nate held up his hands in mock defeat, letting Ray swing his legs down by himself. “I’m not saying you’re not fine now, I’m just saying that half an hour ago you weren’t, and you kept fighting through it, and that’s why your stupid wrist took so long for Gideon to heal,” he retorted.

“My wrist isn’t stupid, I’m a genius,” Ray muttered petulantly.

Heywood rolled his eyes, and Mick did too. If anything about Palmer was stupid, it was that god-awful rodent he had glued to his head and asphyxiated with hairspray. At this point in the day, the other Legends had seemed to tune it out, but Mick had to actively focus to keep his eyes on Palmer’s face and not the atrocity above it. He hated actively focusing.

Across the room, Sara was fussing over the fading bruises on Palmer’s neck. “Dammit, Ray, you have to stop doing this,” she sighed.

“It’s not like I try to,” he protested, voice raspy. He coughed, then continued in his normal timbre. “The bad guys just always seem to decide that throwing me around by the neck is a good idea.”

“I seem to remember you saying something like that earlier,” Sara teased, poking him. “Something about it being a  _ thing _ ?”

Ray went scarlet. “That is  _ not  _ what I-”

“Ray has a choking kink!” Zari declared triumphantly from her perch on the medicine cabinet.

“I said I  _ don’t  _ have a-”

“Bro, you’re into that? How could I not know this?” Nate demanded with exaggerated outrage. Across the room, Amaya and Leo raised their eyebrows in unison.

Ray slumped back down, covering his face in his hands. “I changed my mind,” he groaned, words muffled. “You guys are the worst, I’m staying here-”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have finished healing Mr. Queen,” Gideon’s bright tone interjected. “Shall I wake him up, Captain?”

“Go ahead, Gideon,” Sara said, waving a hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mick noticed Leo slipping to the back of the room, eyeing the exit but seemingly wary of the patient he’d have to pass to leave. Interesting.

“Wha- where am I?” Queen’s doppelganger slurred, rubbing at his eyes. It was a delicate, practiced motion that spared eyeliner and acrylic nail alike, and made Mick want to rub frantically at his own. He liked Leo, but creepy twins of people he knew were not exactly his idea of perfect allies. Still, he trusted Sara’s judgement.

“Hey, Ollie,” Sara said gently. “You’re safe, you’re on the Waverider. We healed you after you defeated that robot, remember?

“Yeah… yo, I took down a  _ robot _ ,” Ollie grinned, gaze unfocused. “ _ Wack. _ ”

“It is possible that Mr. Queen is still recovering from the dose of painkillers I gave him,” Gideon offered apologetically. “He should be fully awake and recovered within a few minutes. Also, Captain Lance, I’m sorry to distract you, but you have an incoming call.”

“What?” Sara asked. “From who? Put it on screen, I guess-”

“From the Time Bureau, Captain. And I’m afraid it’s not that sort of call.”

Mick would never ordinarily apply the word “flustered” to the Captain, but there really was no alternative to describe the way she whirled around and frantically smoothed down her hair as a glowing blue beam sketched out the figure of Agent Sharpe in thin air. 

“Ava! Hi! What’s up?”

“Hello, Sara, I was- what, what are you wearing?” Holo-Ava looked Sara up and down, taking in the feathered curls, the abundance of bubblegum pink, the  _ leg warmers- _

Yeah, Mick could forgive Sara for the undignified squeak she let out. That wasn’t really an outfit you wanted to pick up a FaceTime in. 

“I, uh, we just got back from an undercover- I mean, I just led the Legends through a successful mission in 1988, so obviously-”

“Relax, Sara. You look great,” Ava promised, reaching out to clasp the Captain’s hands in hers. Her holographic hands went right through Sara’s, but neither of them seemed to notice. Ava was smiling softly, and Sara was too, and this was all getting a bit mushy for Mick’s taste. He coughed, loudly, into his fist.

“Right! Yes. This isn’t just a social call,” Ava admitted regretfully. She straightened up, tucking her hands behind her back. “Hi, everyone. You know the level-8 anachronism that you were investigating?”

“Yes, but we took care of that,” Amaya said, in a resigned tone that invited contradiction.

“Not quite, I’m afraid,” Ava said. “It’s gone down to a level-3, but the source appears to be the same. I know this is a lot more low-level then you guys usually handle, so if you’re already out of there I could just send a few agents-”

“That won’t be necessary!” Sara blurted. Ava looked taken aback, and the Captain rushed to reassure her. “Not that I wouldn’t appreciate your help, of course I would! But we’re still in the area- the Waverider is cloaked in a park down the street from the club, and we’re still dressed up- let me just send a few Legends, alright?”

Ava smiled fondly at her. “I know you’re capable, Sara. You don’t need to prove it to me anymore. But okay.”

“I’ll go,” Leo announced, as they started getting mushy again. He shrugged when every head swiveled to him. “What? I’m still dressed up. Palmer, you come with me. We need to talk.”

Mick wished he had popcorn, but he settled for enjoying the way the tension in the room skyrocketed as glances were exchanged all around.

“I’m… not… in costume…” Ray protested weakly.

“Your undersuit kinda looks like an 80’s windbreaker, though,” Zari said pointedly. Mick could read the  _ go get answers  _ in her eyes from across the room. 

“Plus, your hair situation,” Ava murmured, oblivious to the mood of the room but disturbed nonetheless. “It’s pretty 80’s. Did… did you do that on purpose?”

“Dang, I forgot I’ve had my hair done all day- does it still look okay?” Ray asked, anxiously. No one met his gaze. 

He reached up a hand to check, but Nate caught his wrist and lowered it gently. “Better not, dude,” he whispered.

Mick heard a small noise like a cough or a laugh or a sob, and saw Amaya with her hand over her mouth, eyes fixed to where Nate held Ray’s wrist. Leo noticed, too, and that seemed to strengthen his resolve.

“Come on, let’s go. I’m sure someone just happened upon a powered-down robot and freaked out, so let’s go clean up. We’ll take the Jumpship.”

“Sure thing! Let’s go clean up robots… and,” Ray swallowed nervously. “Talk.”

He followed Leo out.

There was a moment of loaded silence in the medbay. 

“I feel like I just missed something,” Ava declared.

“I feel that way too,” Amaya said quietly. She looked up, at Nate, and there was a look in her eyes that made Mick glad he was on the opposite side of the room. “It’s not a good feeling, being left out.”

“What?” Nate looked confused, but he was smiling slightly. “Is this about what Ray-”

“That’s exactly what this is about!” Amaya cried. “I just- how could you not tell me?”

Mick squinted at her. She seemed a bit too upset for this to be about the whole Leo-likes-Ray theory they’d all been keeping secret, but what else could it be? Maybe she just didn’t like Heywood keeping secrets from her?

Nate seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “I don’t- there hasn’t really been a good time, or any time-”

“There hasn’t been a good  _ time _ ?” Amaya repeated, getting into his space. 

Nate looked lost. “Uh… yes? That’s what I said, I don’t understand- where did you even hear about-”

“I had to hear it from Leo! And let me tell you-”

“Wait, Leo knows?” Zari interrupted, looking alarmed. Mick was thinking the same thing- if Leo knew that Ray knew that Leo liked him, then what did that mean?

“Yes, Leo knows! Apparently, you all knew,” Amaya said, folding her arms around herself. She looked less angry and more sad. “Let me tell you, that feels like shit, okay.”

“Hey, Amaya, what’s wrong?” Nate asked softly. “Are you just upset that we didn’t tell you what was going on?”

“Hey, cheer up,” Sara encouraged. “Just because Ray’s doing what you used to doesn’t mean you can’t join in!”

Sara’s words were met with silence.

“What the fuck,” Zari said. 

Mick felt like he was missing something.

“I mean,” Sara continued, oblivious, “I know for a fact that Nate here has enough to go around, you and Palmer can just-” and she was bringing a hand to her mouth in some kind of gesture- 

“ _ Excuse  _ me?” Amaya demanded, knocking Sara’s hand down. “Captain, what the hell has gotten into you? And what do you mean, you know for a fact- I swear, if you slept with him too-”

“Who’s sleeping with Sara?” Ava demanded, as the Captain gaped at Amaya.

“I didn’t  _ sleep with Nate _ , I thought you were sleeping with Nate!” Sara cried.

“ _ No one is sleeping with Nate! _ ” Nate yelled, throwing up his hands.

“You  _ told _ me that Ray was sleeping with Nate!” Amaya pointed an accusing finger at Sara.

“No, I told you that Ray was  _ doing drugs _ with Nate!” 

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” Zari repeated.

“That’s-  _ what _ ?” Amaya stared. “So just now, when you said-”

“I meant that Nate has plenty of psilocybin-rich roots stashed away, and Ray sippin’ that hallucinogenic tea doesn’t mean you can’t, too, and the gesture was supposed to be sharing shots! Of course,” Sara paused, mouth twitching in distaste, “I can see now how that might have been, ah, misinterpreted-”

“Sorry, let’s go back to why you thought Ray and I were,” Nate made a vague motion with his hand, “you know. I mean, we’re bros and all, but-”

“But when Leo told me you had moved on I wasn’t that shocked to hear it was Ray,” Amaya told him. 

“ _ Leo _ thinks Nate and Ray are hooking up?” Zari asked, jumping down from the cabinet. “Is that why he seemed so mad? Is he jealous?”

“Jealous?” Sara repeated. “Leo?”

“Wait,” Mick held up a hand, trying to connect the dots. “If Palmer has been trippin’ balls, does that mean he hallucinated the whole thing, and Leo’s not actually in love with him and planning on asking him on a double date with Ava and the Captain?”

“Ray’s  _ not _ on drugs and he’s  _ not _ sleeping with me!” Nate announced, grabbing his hair.

“So it  _ is _ true?” Mick questioned, stepping towards him.

“Who’s going on a double date?” Ava asked, looking lost. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, dude, but either way we just sent Ray and Leo off alone when Ray knows that Leo likes him but Leo thinks he’s sleeping with me and-”

“Leo doesn’t like Ray, he was talking about-”

“ _ Why is everybody shouting? _ ” 

“I'M CLAUSTROPHOBIC-”

“Robots.” Ollie said, bolting upright, breathing hard. 

The chaos paused. 

Sara blinked at him, holding Mick and Nate apart by the collars. “Sorry, what was that?” she asked politely.

“Robots,” Ollie repeated. “They kept healing when you guys knocked them down.”

“Until we figured out how to put them in sleep mode, yeah,” Zari said patiently from where she had curled up in the corner.

“But I didn’t,” Ollie said. “When I took down that robot. Which was  _ really  _ cool, I don’t think I’ll ever be that cool again in my life-”

“Ollie,” Sara said calmly.

“But I didn’t pull the wire, I got distracted when it fell down the stairs. I never put that one in sleep mode, we have to go.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t matter,” Amaya said soothingly. “The robot got pretty smashed; it’s not getting up anytime soon. Why don’t you lie down for a bit longer-”

Ollie was already shaking his head. “That’s what I’m saying. Physically breaking these things doesn’t stop them, they can self-repair almost any damage.”

“How would you know that?” Mick asked, suspicious.

Ollie sighed. “Because I think I know the guy that made them.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and an epilogue left! I hope you're enjoying the ride as much as I am.
> 
> Say hi on ig! (_aprilbird_)
> 
> Kudos & comments make my day please give me that sweet validation xxx


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on this one- I ran out of prewritten chapters & life got in the way, but it's here now! Anyone who left kudos & comments over the last few months- you're what brought me the motivation and encouragement I needed to break through my months of writer's block & get this done. Thank you all, & thanks to anyone & everyone reading!

**_-Ray-_ **

_1988_

_Malachite nightclub_

_San Francisco, CA_

_Ray Palmer was not a coward. Really._

 

As Ray led Leo through the maze of shadowed San Francisco alleyways, he was thinking about Oliver Queen.

The two of them may have gotten off to a rough start, but he was glad they had gotten to a point where their teams could work together. They were allies, occasionally, and friends, hesitantly. Ray considered himself to be friends with nearly every acquaintance he had, and even with some of his enemies, but it was strange with Oliver. He couldn’t imagine going for drinks with the guy, like Barry did, or watching old movies and reminiscing about the past, like Sara did. Maybe it was that he got the impression, sometimes, that he didn’t know the first thing about Oliver, that the man he periodically fought alongside was a total stranger- not only to Ray, but to everyone around him, to some degree. Except Felicity, of course.

He wasn’t bitter about what had happened with Felicity. He wasn’t even sad about it anymore, really. She and Oliver had a connection that nothing could come between for long, and he was glad he hadn’t tried to.

It was just- he kept thinking about earlier. About a different Oliver Queen, who was open and smiling but still wore the marks of vigilantism- the muscles, the mask shadow, the pants. About what Leo had said- _why the hell would I choose him when I can have you._ About how he had been chosen over Oliver Queen, finally, but it didn’t feel good.

It wasn’t that he compared himself to Oliver, or was jealous of him. He was wary of the man, and felt pity that he would never voice for everything Oliver had been through and lost that Ray could only guess at. But the Green Arrow was an unstoppable fighting machine, and Mayor Queen was a respected leader, and no matter what mask he was wearing Oliver was thoughtful and precise and measured his words carefully.

So, basically, the complete opposite of Ray, at the moment.

“...so that’s the third way I tried to incorporate the dwarf star alloy’s shrinking properties into the exosuit, but, as I was saying, I didn’t compensate for the consequences of integrating the hard-light beam technology at the same time, which caused a chain reaction that nearly-”

“Sorry to interrupt- this is it, yeah?” Leo interjected.

_Thank god._ Ray forced his mouth closed over the rambling explanation and took in his surroundings. They were in front of an unremarkable alley door, and the light was practically nonexistent, but he recognized it as the back door to Malachite that he had led the Legends through earlier.

“I- yeah,” Ray said.

“Wonderful. I’ll only be a minute,” Leo said, pulling a lockpick out of his pocket and leaning over the door.

Ray took the opportunity to lean against the wall and resisted the urge to lightly beat his head against it. He didn’t think he was the guy to monologue about science rather than leave silence for an awkward conversation, but here they were. A cool breeze ruffled his hair. He could feel a few strands against his face, and spared a thought to mourn the magnificent sculpture it had been at the start of the day. He hadn’t even gotten a good selfie, damn it.

The breeze came again, whistling through the alley. The streets were transformed at night: the navy sky was clouded, leaving city lights reflecting off of mist-slick streets as the only source of light in the alleyways. He closed his eyes. Had it really only been this morning that he and Leo had been doing recon in the sunshine? He remembered the dry heat and the blue sky distantly, like it was weeks ago. How had everything gotten so tangled so quickly?

Ray opened his eyes slightly, watching Leo. If someone had asked yesterday, he would have said that Leo was a great teammate and an intelligent, sarcastic new friend of his. How had they gone from that to unrequited love? Leo hadn’t even known him all that long; when had he found the time to develop a crush? Ray knew he didn’t always pick up what others were putting down, but the events of that morning were genuinely the first inklings he had gotten about Leo’s feelings. He felt unprepared for the level of seriousness it would take to let him down easy. What if he was too flippant? Or too solemn? He was definitely overthinking this. Wait, what if that meant-

He paused, noting Leo’s objective attractiveness even in the dim glow around them, and his dry sense of humor, and his quick wit…. No. He could note Leo’s good qualities, but he definitely wasn’t attracted to him, definitely didn’t see him as anything more than a friend and teammate. The fact that he had to pause and wonder about it probably meant something, but now wasn’t the time.

“Open sesame,” Leo declared, clicking the door open.

Ray gave him a tight smile and followed him into the yawning black.

“Shit, where’s the lightswitch?” Leo whispered.

“I don’t know, the lights were on when I got here last time,” Ray replied, feeling around the wall to the left of the door.

“They switch was at the bottom of the stairs, I think, on the other side of the room,” Leo murmured, stepping around him.

“How did both of us forget a flashlight?” Ray wondered, wishing for the familiar weight of the ATOM suit in his pocket. If the suit wasn’t damaged, he could have used the lights on the helmet. Or on the gauntlets. Or the backup flashlights in the belt compartments. Okay, so he wasn’t a big fan of the dark. It was fine. This was fine.

“I guess we’ll just have to, I don’t know, feel our way along the wall until we get to the lights?”

It really was pitch black in the basement- the faint glow coming from outside only illuminated a few feet of concrete floor just inside the doorway. He remembered shelves and boxes, but it was all a homogenous blackness before them.

“Better than tripping over sleeping robots,” he agreed.

“That it is,” Leo answered, and then he was taking Ray’s wrist and pulling him along behind. Ray made a strangled sort of sound at the feeling of his hand, and the touch was gone immediately.

“Shit, sorry. I forgot you hurt your wrist,” Leo apologized.

“I- yes. Yep, I hurt my wrist, and it, I guess, still sort of hurts, which is 100 percent why I gasped,” Ray managed.

“Here, just hold onto my sleeve, then, so we don’t get separated,” Leo offered, and Ray clutched the offered leather with a shaking hand. This- blindly stumbling through the dark, feeling their way along the wall, practically holding hands, facing an unknown scenario with only each other as backup- was a less than ideal scenario in which to confront Leo about his feelings. Maybe it could wait.

“You know, if Gideon didn’t finish healing your wrist, you shouldn’t have agreed to come with,” Leo said after a minute of creeping along. “I didn’t mean to pressure you, or anything. I just thought we should talk.”

Then again, maybe not. Ray cleared his throat. “Uh. Talk about what?”

“Well, I… A few things have come to light today, wouldn’t you agree? Things that, for whatever perfectly reasonable reason, have been… hidden, up until now.”

Oh god. “...Hidden?”

“I just mean, it’s perfectly fine to want to keep romantic matters close the the heart, right, especially in such a close-knit team, but sometimes it might be better to, to share-”

“Look, Leo, if you’re getting at what I think you’re getting at, I just want to say that I-”

“Especially when there are other parties to consider, or if announcing any new, hm, not to be premature, but, relationships? Might be disruptive to the team-“

“I’m flattered, I really am-”

“And I know the last thing either of you want is to hurt- wait, what?”

“I mean, you’re amazing, and I totally love you as a friend and teammate, and you are, like, really attractive and badass, but I just don’t-”

“Wait, Ray, hang on, you think I-”

“And it’s not your fault, it’s not even because you’re a dude, which should probably throw me more than it does, but that’s a whole other thing that, to be honest, I don’t really feel like tackling right now-”

“Ray!” Leo hissed, stopping short. Ray, who had been crouching low as they inched along, ran face first into the back of a leather-padded shoulder, cutting his words off mid-sentence.

“...yes?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“What the, uh, hell, are you... talking about? Because I suddenly get the feeling they might be different things.”

“I’m talking about how you and Nate are being insensitive! The two of you aren’t even considering others’ feelings, flaunting your new relationship without a thought towards giving any sort of explanation to a friend and teammate who just-”

“Wait, _what_?” Ray stared disbelievingly into the darkness where he could picture Leo’s face, glaring over his shoulder. The meaning of his words dawned on him, and he almost laughed out loud. “Wait, you don’t think that- that Nate and I-?”

“You don’t have to hide it, the whole damn ship knows at this point.”

“But, Leo, we- Nate and I, we aren’t together.”

“...You’re not?”

“No! Not romantically, not sexually, not any combination thereof. We’re, like, best friends forever, and I guess I could kind of see how, like, a complete stranger might misinterpret the body language, or, uh, the conversations, or the twenty-step handshake that includes simultaneous platonic spankings- or, yeah, you know, I can maybe see where someone could get the wrong idea.”

Leo made a disbelieving sound, but didn’t say anything.

“Does anyone really think that, you know… holy crap. You- the reason you’re so upset, that you wanted to talk- you thought we were! You thought Nate and I were together, and you were jealous, and-”

“Hold on a second, Palmer, why the hell would _I_ be jealous? I’m angry on _Amaya’s_ behalf, because even if you and Nate aren’t getting frisky, she sure thinks you are, and she’s understandably upset-”

“Because she thinks, what? But she and Nate are still together, kind of, even though they’re not, I mean- regardless of the situation, he’d have to be a total dick to just move on without any expla- oh. Oh, no.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“She really thinks-”

“She does. And so does the Captain.”

“ _Sara_ thinks that me and Nate-? But she _knows_ that we- she knows I’m not, or, at least, I didn’t think- but just this morning she was…”

“She was what?”

“She was helping _you_ plan a double date!”

“You _heard_ that?” Leo pulled his arm away, leaving Ray reaching after his sleeve with the other hand pressed against the concrete wall.

“Uh, Leo, where’d you-”

“Relax, we’re right where the stairs start, I’m just trying to find the switch- can we go back to where you were eavesdropping on the Captain and I?”

Ray took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Look, I overheard you two planning and it kinda freaked me out because I sort of suspected you liked me after you offered to be my rebound or whatever during the mission this morning and then that only confirmed it for me and I’ve been freaking out about this all day even though Nate and everyone have been trying to help out but-”

There was a sharp _click_ , and a dull whirr as the lights clunked on, one by one, flooding the basement in harsh, glaring light.

Ray staggered back, squeezing his eyes shut as he finished, “I just don’t see you that way!” His words echoed through the room. He cracked one eye open, then the other, squinting towards Leo, who was staring at him, pale eyes wide in the harsh lights.

Dammit, this was exactly what he had been worrying about, being insensitive and thoughtless and hurtful, and Leo still hadn’t blinked yet, oh man, he must be heartbroken-

Leo’s gaze shifted, suddenly, from staring incredulously at Ray to staring just over his shoulder, and his eyes widened further. “Ray,” he said, and his voice was even. “Turn around.”

Ray turned, heart racing, to find- nothing. Absolutely nothing, just a big empty basement, scattered with shelving and frozen, dormant robots, that strange little strip-club corner still curling strips of fake tile over the gleaming concrete floors.

“Man,” he said, catching his breath, “you can’t just, scare people like that, I was just jumpscared by an empty basement!”

“Exactly, Palmer. It’s an empty basement.”

Ray blinked at him. “Are you making fun of me because I don’t like-like you back-”

“Ray! This is _so_ not the time, but for the record, _I’m not attracted to you_.”

_What?_ “Not even a little bit?”

“It’s an _empty basement_ , Ray. Remember how we left it? Remember the robots?”

“The robots are still here, look-”

“Remember the robot that was thrown down the stairs and smashed across the floor? Remember all the wires and plating and shit?”

Ray stared at the floor, still reeling from the- but, wait, the floor was too clean, too gleaming, there were no- “Robot parts. All the robot parts are gone, oh crap, someone must have found them and taken them, that’s the Anachronism, we gotta-”

“No one could have come down here, remember? I jammed the door shut, and it’s only been like 45 minutes. I don’t think we have to worry about robot parts getting out into the 80’s.”

Something in his tone suggested a “but”, so Ray gestured for him to go on.

“But, if no one came down through the club entrance, and I had to pick the lock to get us in just now, then the only other door…”

“Is the creepy secret room with breach energy?”

“Exactly.” Wordlessly, the two of them started edging towards the abandoned corner.

Ray sighed to himself, wishing he had the suit. Confused clubgoers finding robot parts were one thing, but their mysterious creator returning from another dimension- and choosing to bring home the smashed parts but not any of the perfectly intact dormant robots, what the heck- was another thing entirely.

They approached the paneled corner, creeping through the strange little forest of poles. The basement was much easier to traverse in full light, without having to clutch one another for support. Which reminded Ray of what they had just been talking about, and how something still didn’t add up.

“So, just to clarify,” he stage-whispered, “you aren’t into me? Like, at all?”

Leo blinked at him as he inspected the wall, searching for the right panel. “Nope.”

“But, earlier, when we were all fighting, you-”

“Got it.”

The door swung open, revealing a smaller empty room and absolutely no robots.

“Shit. Wait, what were you saying about the fight?”

“Just that, I don’t know, something doesn’t add up for me. When your cold gun was broken and you ran after that robot by yourself, I tried to make you take our new Oliver with you, but you said-”

“I said I’d rather have you backing me, I remember. I’m glad he’s okay, though, I never got a chance to apologize and he would have died thinking I hated him- wait a second, what-”

“Why would he think you hate him?”

“What happened to that robot, the one Ollie rode down the stairs? I mean, did he manage to pull the-”

“Leo, why would Ollie think you hate him? He’s Oliver Queen, for crying out loud, everyone loves him.”

“The- what? I don’t- he thinks I don’t agree with his lifestyle, but right now I think we might have bigger problems-”

“His lifestyle? But doesn’t he know that you’re also-” and Leo said “gay” at the same time as Ray said “a vigilante” and then they were staring at each other, paused just inside the empty little room, all other matters forgotten.

“Ray, this isn’t your Oliver, this one isn’t a vigilante-”

“But, wait, he has to be, he has the leather pants and the scary shoes and the eye paint and the muscles and he’s the freakin’ Green Arrow and everyone always chooses him over me except for you apparently which is why I thought-”

“We don’t have time for this, I was trying to tell you that I think that robot’s still-”

“But if Ollie isn’t the Green Arrow, then how do you explain all the-”

A crash rang out, reverberating through the main room.

They both froze, turned, looked out through the doorway to see the missing robot, straightening up from shoving over a row of metal shelving, the last few plates clicking back into place, looming over them as if in slow motion.

A distant echo of footsteps rang out, the sound of someone sprinting.

There was nothing but fabric as Ray groped for his suit, and he suddenly remembered that Leo didn’t have his cold gun, and they were defenseless-

And then Ollie was there, sprinting, and leaping into the air, and catching himself high on the nearest pole in an echo of his move from the top of the stairs, but this time he was sliding down, spinning and twisting in a complicated move that swung him out, holding the pole by his legs, arms stretching just enough to reach and _pull_ -

The robot froze, and its eyes dimmed, and it mechanically folded itself back into the neutral stance.

Ollie’s hands touched the ground and he neatly flipped onto his feet.

Ray released the death grip his hands had found on Leo’s jacket. He blinked. Replayed the last few seconds in his head. Blinked again.  
“I’m sorry,” he said, reconsidering his assumptions of the leather pants and eyeliner and Leo’s choice and every single conversation from the last day. “but. _What?!?_ ”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more after this! I'll try not to wait four months before updating again, but you can hmu in the comments or on IG (@_aprilbird_). As always, thanks for reading & commenting & kudosing, you guys rock!


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